Endless
by SawyerRaleigh
Summary: They are everywhere and no where.
1. Destined

_Author's Note: Recently finished reading the Sandman series (I started it forever ago and just never got the last two books) and omgz I loved it. Naturally I had to go write a crossover fic. XD There are little snippets of other characters running into the endless in my doc but for now this is all you get. :P I may post other chapters at some point, such as the one I started with Seishirou having a little chat with Death. ^-^ In the meantime, here's a little talk between Kamui and Destiny. :P_

_.  
_

There, standing on the edge of an exposed beam, was a man in a hooded robe that concealed nearly all of his face. Kamui had the sense that he should be afraid of him, and yet he only felt weary acceptance as he walked across the beam and sat down at his feet.

"So you know how it all ends then don't you?" He asked softly, not even sure where the words were coming from. Certainly he had not consciously thought them.

"And what do you mean by 'it all'?" The man asked in a deep, dusty voice that echoed with the ripples of possibilities of all the things that could have happened and never would.

"The world." Kamui gestured vaguely at the lights of the city before them.

"That is hardly 'all' that there is." The man softly admonished.

"Whatever." Kamui realized he was being extremely rude to someone who probably should merit utmost respect but found he could not address the figure politely. However when the echoing silence of an unanswered question stretched on between them, he swallowed his pride and asked again, more carefully, "You know how the world ends though, don't you?"

A few more seconds of silence stretched on before he replied. "I was here before the first spark flared to life in a great void, here to bear witness to the births and deaths of countless suns and stars and of the planets and their inhabitants, here to see the first bird take flight, knowing the first joy of soaring unbound through the sky, here to see the first spider weave its silver net and capture its first, struggling prey. I was here for the first great love, and for the first great betrayal. I was here when the first great civilization labored beneath a hot sun to the peak of their own shining glory and I was here when it faded away into dust, long-forgotten by those who live today."

Kamui held still, unwavering as the infinitely deep voice continued.

"I am here now to see this world standing on the brink of its own demise, as so many worlds before it have stood. I am here to bear witness to an outcome that has long since been foretold and not yet been written."

The boy gripped at the iron beneath him, hoping that there would be some hint in the words as to what that outcome would be.

"And I shall be here, eons after this planet has been consumed by the sun that once allowed life to flourish on its surface." The man concluded heavily.

"Except that's not really an answer is it?" Kamui turned at last to face him with an irritated frown.

"Destiny answers to no mortal."

"Who does Destiny answer to?" Kamui asked warily.

"Himself."

Kamui turned this over in his mind for a bit. "And those chains are heavier than the ones binding you to that book aren't they?"

"No." Destiny replied softly. "They are, in fact, just as heavy."

"Did you choose those shackles?"

"No more than you chose yours."

The boy sighed, losing himself for a few minutes in his own thoughts as the wind softly ruffled his hair, clinking together the metal chains binding Destiny to his book. "Is there really only one future?" he asked at long last.

"Of course."

Kamui was taken aback by this blunt response. "Really?"

"Only one future will come to pass."

Kamui thought this over carefully. "But there are many possibilities as to what that will mean?"

"No. There is only one."

"So then what is it?" Kamui pressed.

"That I cannot tell you."

"Then why are you here?"

Destiny turned to face him and Kamui strained to see his eyes hidden beneath the hood of his robes but darkness shrouded them from view.

"To bear witness." He replied simply.

"Well if the future's going to be the same no matter what, then why does it matter if I'm around or not? Why does there need to be a 'Kamui'?"

"For the same reason there needs to be a king in a game of chess."

"I- What? Who are you then? The player?" Kamui retorted angrily.

"No."

"Who is then?" Kamui demanded. "Is there just some unseen god toying with all of us like this is some kind of sick game to him?"

"There are and have been and will be many gods, some seen, some unseen, but they do not control your fate."

"Well then who does?"

"It is not a question of who."

The wind picked up slightly with a slight tang in the air that warned quietly of a storm in the distance. Kamui could not help but notice that the pages of the book did not so much as rustle in the breeze.

He opened his mouth to ask another question but before he could get the words out, Destiny shook his head.

"I am needed elsewhere."

And with that he vanished, leaving Kamui to wonder if it was merely coincidence that their paths had crossed this night. Then a distant voice whispered in his memory.

_There is no coincidence. There is only…_

"Hitsuzen." He whispered to himself, and the word was like a lullaby.


	2. Delirious

_Author's Note: I originally just meant for this to be a short Kamui meets Destiny fic but had to go and write Kotori and Delirium because I just loved the image of the two of them together... I may have to draw this at some point too. XD_

.

Two

.

_"What a pretty girl!"_

Kotori looked up to see a girl with rainbow-dyed hair, braided on one side with a delicate little ribbon and styled into a sort of Mohawk on the other.

"You have lovely eyes." She replied immediately, taking in the two different colored eyes of green and blue.

_"Ooooh a compliment! Thank you! Have you seen my doggy?" _She asked, her voice wandering between high and low, whispers and yells, as though it had forgotten where it was supposed to be, just as the girl herself appeared to have forgotten.

"A doggy?" Kotori wondered at the small fish that buzzed around the girl like flies. They flitted to and fro like butterflies, their rainbow scales shimmering in the sunlight.

_"Yeees. I lost him. Or he lost me. Maybe both. Have you seen him?"_

"My brother brought home a puppy once." Kotori's eyes glazed in memory. "Such a cute little puppy who couldn't even walk yet and he was soaking, soaking wet." She pointed at a fish, or tried to, following it with her finger as it wandered erratically in the air. "Just like they should be."

_"I like you. Let's be friends. Do you want to go swimming with me?"_

"Can the fishies come too?"

_"They aaaalways come. Except when they don't, or when I forget that they're me."_

"Fishies follow me sometimes too." Kotori took the girls outstretched hand and leapt feet-first into the pool with her, feeling the walls fade away to coral and ocean.

_"I have… a brother too. I have three and sometimes four."_

"Sometimes four?" Kotori's thoughts stumbled over the strange assertion and for one brief moment, the confusion was a kind of clarity. Then it was lost again in a hazy, colorful and unquestioning acceptance. "I have a brother too!"

_"Yes. Your brother is kind of like one of mine." _The girl agreed._ "He is really dark and serious. And he looks after you like my brother does for me sometimes."_

"Your brother must be a nice person."

_"I don't think so."_

"Oh." Kotori watched butterflies dance in a field of cotton candy as brilliantly beaded bumble bees buzzed by. "Where are we?" she suddenly asked and for a split second, her mind sobered again. The world came into focus and then… and then the girl took Kotori's hand again, leading her through puddles of iridescent paint splatters, shimmering in gossamer sunlight.

_"We just are." _She replied vaguely.

"Can I go back?" Kotori wondered aloud as she stepped over a creek full of running poetry, the words tumbling over one another in a fluid symphony of prose.

_"Some people go back." _The girl admitted. _"But most people don't."_ She paused to study a frog made of cellophane. _"Sometimes I lose them though."_

"Like the doggy?"

_"What doggy?"_ She pulled Kotori into a finely woven basket attached to a hot air balloon filled with fireflies.

"Is my mother here?" Kotori asked softly, watching pirate ships sail by upside down, making ripples in the clear blue sky.

_"I dunno._"

"It's beautiful." Kotori commented, staring at the waves in the sky above. "I love blue things… like the world."

_"The world isn't blue. It's macaroni and pizza and concrete and all other sorts of things."_

Kotori wasn't listening though. "I need… to return…" she felt feathers brush her cheek, leaving behind something wet. When she raised a hand to her skin, her fingers came back smeared with blood. "Kamui…"

"I have to go back." She cried out to the girl. "I have to go back now! There's someone… that I want to protect… before it's too late…" She was distracted by the creaking of the bottom of the basket. She stared at it in horror, realizing what was about to happen even before the wood gave way and she fell, down, down, down… down a rabbit hole where clocks flew past, every one of them striking midnight in perfect, uncanny unison.

"People don't usually stop being mine." The girl whispered in her ear. "Until they become my sister's."

Then everything went dark and Kotori blinked once, seeing a smiling woman with frizzy black hair and she knew.

Everything was going to be alright.


	3. Dying

_Author's Note: Huh, so the ideas are continuing. I may actually make it through all of the Endless after all. :P_

.

He used to think that she was one of his mother's many delusions. Then the day he killed his mother, he got to know her a little better.

He never told Hokuto this of course, but the real reason he had always liked her was because of how much she reminded him of Death. Not death, mind you, not the end of mortal life, but of Death herself, the Endless with the quirkily accepting attitude toward beginnings and endings that he found charming to say the least.

He knew her presence by the hawk, which normally obeyed his every command flawlessly, and yet had no qualms about abandoning him on a dime to alight on her shoulder in a flurry of pleasure. He smiled and gave a familiar nod, choking back his annoyance with the shikigami, well aware that it did not do to insult any members of her family.

"Such a beautiful shikigami." She crooned softly to it.

"I haven't killed anyone." He observed pointedly.

"No, you haven't physically killed anyone." She amended.

He stared at the water on the edge of the bank, at how it was becoming choppy and disturbed, then slowly looked up just in time to see the last of the bridge's suspension wires collapse into the dark, frigid waters.

"I see." He reached for a cigarette. "Did Subaru die too just now?"

"Only in spirit."

Seishirou snorted derisively at the cliché.

"It's funny," the young woman noted, "How close you have been death all your life and how little you have understood it."

Seishirou shrugged. "There was never any need for me to understand it."

"I suppose not." She eyed him carefully. "But did you really never wonder?"

He started to say no, the words rolling so casually off his tongue just like every other lie he ever told. Her expression stopped him short though and he realized what a foolish mistake he had almost made.

"Yes." He answered slowly.

She chuckled softly and it was like forgiveness, although he could not for the life of him figure out what he needed forgiving for. All he knew was that for one moment, he felt… perfect.

"Let's go." She held a hand out to him.

He could have refused to take it. He wondered if anyone ever did that, simply refused to die. Would that mean living forever or just being stuck in this strange in between state right now? He wasn't even a ghost really, he wasn't sure what he was. Or what he had ever been, come to think of it. Existence was apparently more fluid and vague than he had ever thought to consider it.

He took her hand.


	4. Desirous

_Author's Note: Today's chapter in part brought to you by the song "Relax, Take it Easy" by Mika. :P_

_._

"Hey there gorgeous." Yuuto signaled to the bartender. "Haven't seen you in a while."

A pair of luscious lips curled in a seductive smile back at him. "I've been busy. As have you or so I hear."

Yuuto shrugged. "Not so much as you might think."

"Destroying the world gives plenty of vacation time?"

"And a full coverage health plan."

"Oh?"

Yuuto nodded seriously. "Yes, if anything goes wrong it's completely taken care of."

"How so?"

"You die."

The stranger laughed and Yuuto found himself wondering as usual whether his companion was male or female.

"Looks like my sister is going to be busy again."

"Which one?"

The stranger smirked, emptying a glass of wine. "All of them I suppose really."

"How many are there?" Yuuto offered an arm without thinking and they left the pub, finding outside a summer night thick with warm humidity.

"Three."

"Well that's not so bad. Surely they can only do so much damage when there's only three of them right?"

The stranger smirked again and Yuuto decided that he should probably stop asking stupid questions. They strolled leisurely in silence for a while, allowing a quiet kind of tension fill the air until at last he spoke again.

"My place or yours?"

The stranger gave him an amused look through eyes far more golden than a king's ransom. So much for not asking any more stupid question.

"Always yours." Came the husky reply.

"You know, there's something I've often wondered." Yuuto remarked as he unlocked his apartment door.

"What's that?" The door slammed shut as two bodies leaned against it, fumbling at buttons and ties.

"Are we friends with benefits?"

The laugh was as golden as the eyes above it.

"No. You don't want friends."

"Do you?" Yuuto murmured. How had they gone back to drinking? When did this champagne get here? And why did it taste like nectar fit for a god?

"What would I need friends for?"

"Point taken." The words came out more slurred than he intended and he wasn't sure which part was more intoxicating: the alcohol or the delightful things the stranger had taken to doing in his lap.

A long moan distracted him from the question and it very nearly slipped his mind as he gasped for breath. When he opened his eyes again, there was a feast before him and he had no recollection of any of such indulgent delicacies having been in his apartment earlier. He didn't even know where to buy caviar.

"Thought we could use a break before round two."

"Brilliant." And there was of course more champagne. "But don't you ever get any offers for something more?" He asked over a bite of decadent fondant. "Relationship-wise I mean."

"No. I'm the one who makes the offers." The stranger picked up a slice of fruit, dipping it a bowl of warm chocolate, holding it out to him. "Apple?"

Understanding whispered through the buzz of sensual pleasure hanging thick in the air and Yuuto mentally acknowledged the warning.

And took a bite.


	5. Desperate

_Author's Note: Jeez this one is depressing... my least favorite of the Endless. -_-  
_

.

Subaru had not eaten in days, and yet he could not be bothered to buy groceries or prepare a meal.

A clock ticked somewhere in the apartment, vocalizing each passing second as though time would stop if it did not claim each arbitrarily designated interval.

The phone had rung off and taken message after message until the inbox was full and refused to hold a single other syllable until something was deleted but Subaru could not be bothered to touch the answering machine.

It glowed wearily across the floor as though it were watching the pendulum of the clock still chattering away about wasted seconds.

There was a figure in the corner and Subaru could not even be bothered to sit up.

It had been there for quite some time, although he had not paid enough attention to the clock to know how long. Days perhaps. Or maybe only seconds. It didn't particularly matter. He had a feeling that figure didn't care either. It wasn't like it didn't have all the time in the universe to sit here and wait for Subaru.

At some point, the tiniest hint of curiosity struck him and he wondered aloud where the figure lived. He did not really recall the full answer but the word "mirrors" stuck in his mind and he glanced over at the full length mirror across the room.

For a moment he saw _her, _her green eyes dull and lifeless punctuated by dark haunting shadows, her hair mussed, in sore need of a trim, her skin sallow with the sickly sheen of one who has been ill for a long time. Then the image sharpened and he realized it wasn't her at all but himself. She would have never allowed herself to look so unkempt.

He blinked and the image blurred again, to become a man with blood on his hands, soft petals drifting around him as night shadowed his features. A sea of bones lay all around him, rotting corpses with their hands upraised toward the man, some even clinging to the edges of a dark leather coat as if hoping to drag down their undertaker into hell itself with them.

"Sei-" He coughed and the image sharpened again, revealing his own passionless face staring down at the dead around him.

The figure was beside him now and he knew she had been all along. She had lurked behind the door since the first job he had ever taken as an onmyouji, since the first time he had spoken to a ghost, that of the little girl raped and murdered by her own uncle.

The figure had been there in the corner of the mirror when he had first looked into it after Hokuto's death, mottled clammy hands reaching silently for Subaru's arm. She had even touched him in his dreams, dead skin clinging to his clothes as he tried to push her away.

And now he leaned into her, accepting the foul embrace and allowing himself to be enveloped in rolls of rotten flesh.

She leaned into his ear, her few remaining teeth blackened and loose in diseased gums. "Do you want to know a secret?" She offered without hint of allure.

"What." There was no question, only dull, automatic response.

"Everyone knows that my predecessor was assassinated and her murderer doomed to eternal torment."

"Then it's not a secret."

"Ah but apart from the others in my order, no one knows what became of my predecessor. Would you like to know what torment was bestowed upon the killer?"

The stench of filth should have been overwhelming and yet, like the black, plague-infested rats that crawled across her skin and crept through her hair, Subaru found no reason to attempt an escape.

"The worst torture imaginable." She breathed, the smell of old meat and unwashed bodies washing over him.

Even through the haze that was his state of mind, understanding struck Subaru like a ton of bricks.

"It was you. You replaced her… and became her."

_Smile_ wasn't quite the right word for the contortion of the figure's lips.

"Sound familiar?"

All this time, he had thought he understood why he was hers. All this time, he had had no idea.

Subaru closed his eyes.

And gave up.


	6. Destructive

_Author's Note: I know I have a few people following this story that haven't read Sandman so I feel like this chapter in particular requires a bit of explanation. In the series, the one Endless who basically decides to quit, or at least tries to, is Destruction. He disappears and eventually (I think it was around book 6 or 7) they find him and it turns out he's been trying to be an artist on this secluded little island but without much success as creating goes so much against his own nature. It was sort of funny, and sort of sad at the same time. I always liked him and the paradox surrounding him and I found it easy to parallel with Kusanagi in X who seems to be in such a similar position, being a Dragon of Earth because his powers lend themselves so readily to destruction, and yet not seeming particularly enthusiastic about it._

_Okay, done rambling now. XD_

_._

Kusanagi had not met very many people his own size. Ever since he was a child, he had towered over his other friends and looked the part of a schoolyard bully, the one who could snap the smaller kids in half if things didn't go his way. However, as it was not in his deepest nature to do such a thing, he had never been able to comprehend the fear in other kids' eyes when they saw him approach.

He knew as soon as he saw the man that his life had been the exact same way.

Kusanagi ignored the wide-eyed stares of the park's other patrons as he sank down on the old iron bench beside the stranger.

"Nice dog." He commented and the man gave him a crinkle-eyed smile.

"His name's Barnabus. You can go on and pet him. He won't bite. Unless of course you give him reason to."

The dog's tail wagged a million miles an hour as Kusanagi scratched at the space between his ears. "Isn't that how most animals are?"

The giant of a man gave a booming laugh. "Well put." He gave Kusanagi an appraising look. "Are you a drinker by chance?"

"When I'm given reason to."

The man laughed again and clapped him on the shoulder. It was the first time anyone had actually knocked the breath out of Kusanagi. "Well is camaraderie and a free round enough reason for you?"

"Sure." He gasped in return.

They made their way to a local bar with the dog in tow and Kusanagi wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry when passersby stared at them with obvious discomfort. He was so distracted by the reactions of the people around them that it wasn't until they had reached the bar that Kusanagi registered with surprise that he could not hear the dog's thoughts. That had only ever happened once and that was with the missy's dog, who wasn't a dog, but a spirit. He peered curiously at Barnabus as they took their seats on creaking bar stools but the dog merely grinned back, tongue lolling happily.

The man ordered a drink that Kusanagi had never heard of but that burned his throat, in a shocking, but upon second swig, pleasing sort of way.

"So where do you hail from?" He asked, wondering at the man's ruddy complexion and even ruddier hair.

"Hm." The man's hum was echoed into his glass. "A bit of everywhere you might say." His eyes took on a sadder tone. "And if I had my own way, nowhere."

"Fair enough." Kusanagi took another swig and the man raised an eyebrow.

"You're not going to push for more of an explanation?"

"Nope." He signaled for a second round, declaring the next one on him. "I figure where you're from isn't that important. But what brings you to Japan if I might ask?"

The man closed his eyes and a tremble ran through the pub, rattling the tables, and knocking a picture off the wall. The tremor was over almost as quickly as it started, but most of the guests quickly began gathering their things, leaving money on the table without waiting for change and hastening out the door to what they seemed to believe was the safety of their own homes.

"I suppose you could say that I have a tendency to be where there are earthquakes."

"You like a storm chaser?" Kusanagi thought back to a documentary he saw on tv once. "Like one of those people who follow tornados and stuff?"

"Follow isn't quite the right word, but close enough." The man heaved a great sigh.

"You don't seem too happy about it."

"It's not a happy profession."

"Why don't you quit then?" Kusanagi asked bluntly.

The man chuckled sadly into his drink. "I'm trying. It isn't easy to go against one's own nature." He looked up and gave Kusanagi a pointed look. "Is it."

He shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool.

"Let's take a walk." The man suggested as the bar owners gave them nervous looks. "I think they want to close up shop here."

As soon as they were out in the streets however, Kusanagi felt another tremor beneath his feet, the brief vibration the only warning.

"We need to get to shelter." He grabbed the man's arm but the stranger wouldn't budge.

"Come _on_!" Kusanagi yelled, straining muscles trained to snap an ordinary person's bone if need be. Yet the stranger did not move a millimeter and before Kusanagi could run away himself, the ground groaned the terrible sound of yawning earth, rendering the street in two only a few yards away.

Kusanagi watched in awestruck horror as the bank down the street was swallowed into the gaping maw that the intersection had become. Screams echoed around him and power lines snapped, buzzing dangerously as they fell, igniting small fires that spread and perpetuated the chaos begun by the quake, illuminating the ruble in distorting and disorienting ways even as it tumbled, as if frantic not to be swallowed itself.

Nausea swept over him as a mother and child were struck by a falling lamp post, vanishing beneath it and a cloud of dust. A businessman trying to flee the expanding crevice was slightly too slow and where he expected to take his next scurrying step, there suddenly was nothing and he too fell with a strangled cry. A car toppled sideways into the hole, clinging for a moment to an exposed tree root before the tree too collapsed in with it. The scents of twisting iron and dust and ash overpowered him and Kusanagi found himself coughing violently, half blinded by a spray of gravel as a piece of the uppermost floor of the bank landed beside him with a deafening crash. He raised an arm, but not in time and a large piece of broken concrete flew toward him. He ducked but the corner still clipped the side of his head and all went dark.

When Kusanagi came to, there were ambulances and police cars everywhere, tending to the wounded and the dead as lights flashed disorientingly. No one seemed to have noticed him just yet however, so he pulled himself up, gingerly feeling the side of his head and discovering a long, but fortunately shallow gash.

"It's easy to be blinded by chaos." The stranger noted softly.

Kusanagi jumped, not having realized that the man was still by his side, then winced. "But it's something we all have to deal with at some point or another isn't it?"

The man gave him a look that spoke of centuries of sorrow and regret. "If the world were a different place, then perhaps not."

It was difficult to keep the man's words straight in his head through the pounding headache, ringing in his ears, but Kusanagi had a feeling that the man knew more than he was telling. "So if someone had the opportunity to change the world from what it is now, would you think that they should?"

The man stared at the disaster before them both.

"It would be nice, to have a fair chance at another profession." He remarked enigmatically before turning to him. "You know the world, Kusanagi Shiyuu. You see it as it is and for it is for the simple and intricate truth it weaves. You know the power of chaos and destruction better than most living souls." He paused, considering his words carefully. "And you hold in your heart a reservoir of love deeper and more vast than any other human I have encountered." He offered a hand, helping Kusanagi shakily to his feet. "In the end, the question is: which do you consider greater?"

Kusanagi turned to the street, taking in the broken trees, the crying children, the unextinguished scattered flames. Then closed his eyes and opened them again, seeing the hugging couples, the man carefully pulling the puppy from the crevice, the woman helping an elder to an ambulance. He turned back around, a question on his lips.

But the stranger was gone.


	7. Dreaming

_Author's Note: Yeah this chapter may or may not have been written while listening to "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele… *shifty look*_

.

Quiet rain fell from an inky void, descending from nothing and melting back into the glassy nothingness beneath his knees as it had done for years.

"Not so imaginative as your own realm." He commented softly to the figure that had surely materialized only moments ago yet seemed to have always been standing over his shoulder.

A twinkle like a flash of starlight winked in the dark. "Whatever do you mean? This is part of it."

Kakyou did not reply for a long time and a silence fell between them, punctuated only by the ellipse of raindrops. A blankness surrounded them like that which can only be found in unconsciousness until at last he spoke again, rousing them both from reverie.

"What brings you here?"

"I am always here." Came the low answer, nearly forgotten once spoken, slipping away into the darkness.

A tiny spark flashed in the darkness, but this time not from the figure's shadowed face. Kakyou instinctively turned to see, but it was gone nearly before he had registered it.

"What is the point?" He wondered aloud.

"Point?" the figure seemed genuinely intrigued.

"Isn't there a point? To showing me everything before it happens."

Impossible to tell if the smile he felt upon his back was full of arrogance, pity, or affection.

"Existence is not what mortals try to make of it."

"Did you learn that by living as long as you have, or have you always known that?" Kakyou inquired further, his voice dying away as another falling spark caught his attention.

"You see?" The figure replied with amusement, exhasperation, contempt and love. "You ask that as if those are mutually exclusive options."

Like dying fireflies, the raindrops had been replaced with falling sparks, glowing angry reds and vivacious yellows. Kakyou stared at them, entranced by the light, before at last realizing that it failed to illuminate the surroundings at all. He wondered why until he remembered that there was nothing to illuminate.

Still as they touched the glassy blackness beneath them, some of the sparks died, sinking back into the void and others caught a breath of life, igniting small fires.

"Am I asking all the wrong questions?"

"You might say that." The figure acknowledged, watching the growing blaze as well now with solemn patience.

A few sparks landed on Kakyou's arms, singeing cloth and skin alike.

"When the world ends, what happens to you?" Kakyou suddenly asked as shadows were replaced with flames, making it impossible to tell the difference between the sparks descending from the sky and the ones ascending from the inferno.

The figure's head tilted ever so slightly although it was hard to tell if that was in contemplation of the question or of the sparks that had caught upon his own cloak.

"Do you vanish with it? Do you go to another world, where there are other dreamers? Or return to what you were before there were dreamers in the first place?" Flames licked at his knees, creeping up the material.

"There have always been dreamers."

He was part of the blaze now, impossible to distinguish from what should have been a destructive force although for the life of him, Kakyou could no longer recall what there had ever been to destroy.

"And there always will be?"

But there was no response as all melted away into heat like that of a dying sun.


End file.
